


Grasping at Phantoms

by tittysatan



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 13:59:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10992354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tittysatan/pseuds/tittysatan
Summary: It doesn't matter if it's real or not, as long as someone believes it's real. But if they don't believe, it's just another lie.In which Miller and Venom are coworkers with benefits.





	Grasping at Phantoms

The first time was the night after Miller was rescued.

He woke up in his sickbay bed to see Snake sitting next to him, holding his hand. "How're you holding up, Kaz?"

"…I still can't believe you're really back," he murmured. "After nine years… I hate to say it, but I was starting to give up hope, just a little." He laughed bitterly, and Snake squeezed his hand tighter. "But it's really you, isn't it? You're really here. I thought I'd lost everything, but…as long as you're here, we can take it all back, make it even better than before."

"I really did keep you waiting this time, huh?" Snake laughed. "…I'm sorry."

"Just don't ever do it again."

Miller shook his hand loose from Snake's and used it to pull him down into a kiss.

Snake was gentle, using his hand and mouth on the injured man, holding him tight in the dark as they stroked each other. When Miller came, he stifled a moan in Snake's mouth.

When they were catching their breath, crammed face to face on the narrow cot, Miller's stump shifted, reaching up to touch Snake's face with his phantom arm. "We can take it all back," he murmured again, almost too quiet to hear. "Right?"

"Of course," Snake said. "We'll make Diamond Dogs the best there is."

"If you say so, I'll believe you."

In the morning, Snake waited until Miller had woken up and gave him a kiss before he left for the field again.

 

* * *

 

The second time was about a week later.

It was one of the rare occasions that Snake spent the night at Mother Base, rather than on the ACC or in a ditch somewhere. He was just settling in to sleep. Miller strode into his room, expression hard, and closed and locked the door behind him. Before Snake had a chance to say anything, Miller had already thrown a bottle of lube and a handful of condoms on the bed and started to undress, still unsteady with his missing limbs.

"…what are you doing?" Snake finally asked, when Miller was standing in front of him, naked, stabilizing himself on the bedframe. He wasn't even hard.

"Let's just… Just let me do this, alright?" Miller muttered through gritted teeth.

Miller was rough, shoving Snake down on his face and gripping his hip painfully tight as he thrust, gasping as much from the pain of his still-unhealed wounds as anything. He came first, not caring whether or not Snake was close, clenching his teeth until they creaked to keep from moaning.

Miller collapsed onto the bed, his whole body aching, and Snake turned to smile bemusedly down at him, still hard and unsatisfied. "Rough day?"

Miller opened his mouth to speak, but the anger in his face crumbled when he met Snake's artless gaze. Instead he laughed, a strange, bitter, unamused laugh. "…something like that."

Painfully, he moved himself over to take Snake into his mouth, working him with lips and tongue until he came.

They slept in the same bed that night, mostly because Miller was in too much pain to return to his room. Not entirely, though.

 

* * *

 

There were other times, more than either of them bothered to count.

Without ever talking about it, they settled into a pattern of secrecy, always careful not to do anything that could suggest there was anything more to their relationship than military professionalism, at least as long as anyone else was around. Whenever Snake came back to Mother Base for a shower and some R&R, Miller would find him, or he would find Miller, and they would have hurried, furtive sex, sometimes sharing a bed and sometimes not. But only ever behind locked doors.

They never talked about much of anything in bed. Snake was always earnest and generous, willing to take the lead or let Miller take it, quietly sulking whenever the XO left to sleep by himself, but never trying to put a name to their relationship or make it any less under-the-table. Miller wished he would, sometimes, then hated himself for the thought.

For his own part, Miller maintained a strange detachment even as he sought Snake out again and again, a distant look in his eye as their bodies met, a hard expression that would suddenly appear and vanish just as abruptly. Even someone as clumsy at human interaction as Snake couldn't help but notice. But he never asked.

Ocelot would shoot them looks, smirking and amused, that suggested their attempts at stealth weren't enough to hide from him, but he never said anything, so they ignored it. It was Ocelot, after all. Of course he knew.

 

* * *

 

The last time was after he remembered.

He walked into Miller's office and wordlessly placed a tape deck in front of him. _From the Man Who Sold the World._

"How long did you know?" Big Boss, V, asked.

Miller sighed through gritted teeth, couldn't meet his eyes. "Not at the very beginning. Ocelot didn't tell me until a few days after you brought me back."

"So the first time… You thought I was him." V's gaze was downcast, his hands clenched. "Everything you said…"

"I don't know what I was thinking," Miller said with a sharp laugh. "The things we lose… We can't get them back that easily." He waved his empty sleeve. "The phantoms of the past never leave us, and there's nothing that can change that. Not even if he really had come back."

V just stared at him, mouth set.

"Still, I shouldn't have taken it out on you," Miller said, laughing bitterly. "You're just another poor bastard who got caught up in his dream, after all."

"This whole time, were you just using me as some kind of cheap stand-in?" V snarled. "Because he's not here?"

"Why not?" Miller was still laughing, a shivering, humorless laugh. "That's what you are, isn't it?"

"Did you pretend I was him when we fucked?"

Miller didn't reply.

V grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, kissing him violently, pushing his tongue into his mouth. "You don't have to hold back this time," he muttered, walking around the desk and shoving Miller backwards onto it. "I want to see what you'd look like if you were getting fucked by the _real_ Big Boss."

V was rough, almost tearing Miller's pants off as the XO lay on his desk, not moving either to help or resist, still smiling that strange bitter smile. It was only when V wet his fingers and pushed them inside Miller that he responded with an ecstatic moan, performatively loud, legs twitching, half-lidded eyes staring through V at the man who shared his face. "Hurry," he breathed, cock already hard and straining. "Fuck me, Boss…!"

V gritted his teeth as he drove inside him, almost violent, but all Miller did was pull him closer, legs and arm a vice, panting and moaning into his ear, kissing him messily, driving a knife right into his gut.

"Right there… Harder, aah, god yes…!" he gasped, begging for it the way he never had before. V could do nothing but comply, teeth gritted, pounding him as hard and fast as he could muster, driving him closer and closer to the edge.

Miller's whole body tensed and shivered as he came, a ragged cry of "John…!" tearing from his body and piercing right through V. He thrust a few more times to reach his own anticlimatic orgasm and pulled out, staring down at Miller still panting with pleasure atop his desk. The sick feeling in his gut twisted even tighter.

"Is that what you wanted to see?" Miller finally said, languidly shifting to a sitting position, chest still covered in cum, a bitter smirk on his flushed face. "Did I live up to your expectations?"

V didn't say anything. He just made himself more or less presentable and strode out, leaving Miller there.

Miller cleaned himself off and dressed. Alone in his office, he pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his one arm tight around them.

 

* * *

 

"So he broke it off after he remembered, huh?" Ocelot asked, perched on the side of Miller's desk, smirking and feline. "What a shame."

"If you've got enough time to dig around in other people's private business, go do something useful," Miller said, not taking his eyes off his paperwork.

"I could say that if you have enough time to dig around in the Boss' guts, _you_ should go do something useful," Ocelot said with a shrug. "But I guess you're done with that now."

"…he's a piece of shit. The real Boss, I mean."

"Maybe so. But he's a piece of shit worth following."

"You just say that 'cause you've wanted to nail him since you were twenty."

"That's rich, from the guy who yells 'John! John…!' when he comes."

Miller rested his head in his hand and stared up at Ocelot. "You know I really hate you, right?"

Ocelot just smirked. "You wound me."

"So do you have a reason to be here, or are you going to get out of my office?"

"And here I thought you might appreciate my company." He shrugged, sighing. "Ah well, I can tell when I'm not wanted. I'll see myself out." He did, waving a hand as he went.

"Wait," Miller said, and Ocelot's hand paused over the door handle. "Do you know where he is? Do you ever…see him?"

"So much for minding your own business," Ocelot said, glancing back over his shoulder. "So what if I do?"

And with that, he left.

Miller stared up at the ceiling and wondered about other job opportunities.


End file.
